How to Sell “Ethical Warfare”

One of my students was arrested yesterday and spent the night in a prison cell. R’s offence was protesting the Israeli assault on Gaza. He joins over 700 other Israelis who have been detained since the beginning of Israel’s ruthless war on Gaza: an estimated 230 of whom are still behind bars. Within the Israeli context, this strategy of quelling protest and stifling resistance is unprecedented, and it is quite disturbing that the international media has failed to comment on it.

Simultaneously, the Israeli media has been towing the government line to such a degree that no criticism of the war has been voiced on any of the three local television stations. Indeed, the situation has become so absurd that reporters and anchors are currently less critical of the war than the military spokespeople. In the absence of any critical analysis, it is not so surprising that 78% of Israelis, or about 98% of all Jewish Israelis, support the war.

But eliding critical voices is not the only way that public support has been secured. Support has also been manufactured through ostensibly logical argumentation. One of the ways the media, military and government have been convincing Israelis to rally behind the assault is by claiming that Israel is carrying out a moral military campaign against Hamas. The logic, as Eyal Weizman has cogently observed in his groundbreaking book, Hollow Land, is one of restraint.

The Israeli media continuously emphasises Israel’s restraint by underscoring the gap between what the military forces could do to the Palestinians and what they actually do. Here are a few examples of the refrains Israelis hear daily while listening to the news:

• Israel could bomb houses from the air without warning, but it has military personnel contact – by phone no less – the residents 10 minutes in advance of an attack to alert them that their house is about to be destroyed. The military, so the subtext goes, could demolish houses without such forewarnings, but it does not do so because it values human life.

• Israel deploys teaser bombs – ones that do not actually ruin houses – a few minutes before it fires lethal missiles; again, to show that it could kill more Palestinians but chooses not to do so.

• Israel knows that Hamas leaders are hiding in al-Shifa hospital. The intimation is that it does not raze the medical centre to the ground even though it has the capacity to do so.

• Due to the humanitarian crisis the Israeli military stops its attacks for a few hours each day and allows humanitarian convoys to enter the Gaza Strip. Again, the unspoken claim is that it could have barred these convoys from entering.

The message Israel conveys through these refrains has two different meanings depending on the target audience.

To the Palestinians, the message is one that carries a clear threat: Israel’s restraint could end and there is always the possibility of further escalation. Regardless of how lethal Israel’s military attacks are now, the idea is to intimidate the Palestinian population by underscoring that the violence can always become more deadly and brutal. This guarantees that violence, both when it is and when it is not deployed, remains an ever-looming threat.

The message to the Israelis is a moral one. The subtext is that the Israeli military could indiscriminately unleash its vast arsenal of violence, but chooses not to, because its forces, unlike Hamas, respect human life.

This latter claim appears to have considerable resonance among Israelis, and, yet, it is based on a moral fallacy. The fact that one could be more brutal but chooses to use restraint does not in any way entail that one is moral. The fact that the Israeli military could have razed the entire Gaza Strip, but instead destroyed only 15% of the buildings does not make its actions moral. The fact that the Israeli military could have killed thousands of Palestinian children during this campaign, and, due to restraint, killed “only” 300, does not make Operation Cast Lead ethical.

Ultimately, the moral claims the Israeli government uses to support its actions during this war are empty. They actually reveal Israel’s unwillingness to confront the original source of the current violence, which is not Hamas, but rather the occupation of the Gaza Strip, West Bank and East Jerusalem. My student, R, and the other Israeli protesters seem to have understood this truism; in order to stop them from voicing it, Israel has stomped on their civil liberties by arresting them.

27 comments on this article so far ...

thnx Neve for informing us about how many israelis support the latest raid against the indigenous population of expalestine.
i was supposing that possibly there may be 98% support for yet another ‘defensive’ action by israel.
in US, a poll showed that 41% oppose the raid (hunt,really) while 44% spport it. i had been mightily pleased about that much opposition.
thank you nature for your small mercies.
it does seem, from what i read, that israeli final solution for gaza had not been obtained.
israeli self-caused anger/hatred will one day destroy them. thnx

Bill Moyers, who like most lib/progressives here are only critical when it’s a Republican in the White House, back pedaled on his Journal on the issue of what’s going on in Gaza. He watered down his criticism so you’d think that little of major consequence was going on in Gaza that wasn’t Hamas’ fault.

This commentary followed a barrage of zionist letters slaming him for a comment he made the previous week which simply pointed out (very delicately I might add) that there was a horrible war going on in Gaza.

You can be sure Bill Moyer has been shut up and will not raise the issue of Israel dissent on his show (he’s already been fired once for much much less…).

I heard on one of the local Boston PBS stations commentaries raising questions about “who” is taking the pictures of “dead children”. Raising just enough questions so has to ease the conscience of the viewers for doing NOTHING about the slaught of children and civilians in Gaza.

It doesn’t take much. For the most part its just a matter of marginalization through omission – just talk about a plane that landed on the Hudson River for 3 days, or some other meaningless piece of drivel.

The US and Israel are both masters at making it ALL GO AWAY.

You cannot change such a system. It marginalizes opposition before it gets any traction. It has learned from each uprising how to make it more and more invisible – like shouting at the wind.

The world’s people are in “revolt”, but they’re powerless, and so it really doesn’t matter.

If change is to happen it cannot happen by using the tools of the past. The system has completely, like a virus, innoculated itself against what may seem to have “worked” in the past.

I am sure your student R will carry this latest detention of a one night in jail cell as a badge of honor all his life!
As someone who is living is Israel, you are aware that you can protest almost ANYTHING! in Israel as long as you obtain a permit and the country has seen its share of absurd and offensive protests.

Society of law and order is based on a crime and punishment – a threat. If nobody was afraid to pay for their acts everyone would be committing them. Human nature.

This approach works in relations between countries and peoples as well.

Israel, during its history, was on the receiving end of many terrorist activities originating in Jordan, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon. It all stopped even before Peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan, when these countries and their governments realized it’s not worth it and it does not bring prosperity to their citizens.

Egypt and Jordan also acknowledged Israel right to EXIST!

What other countries and their military offer civilian population warning before military action? Cell phone text messages to get out? Humanitarian use of technology?

From Alexander the Great to today’s generals – surprise has been considered the biggest asset of any military operation. Israeili military GIVES IT UP, thus reducing its success of hitting hamas combatants , giving them time to hide and putting Israeli soldiers at risk to SAVE CIVILIANS!

In the begining of civilization, barbarian tribes were fighting and killing everybody in the village. Then it developed into wars in open fields performed by armies – saving the lives of the community that lost the battle.

Hamas is reversing thousands years of civilization evolution: taking the war back to the village and using its civilians as a human defense shield and PR chip knowing that Israel plays by other rules. The civilized rules.

It looks like hamas is willing to fight till the last Palestinian in Gaza, while its leadership is hiding in the basement of the hospitals.

When martyrdom is glorified, death becomes just another mean that justifies the end. Hamas strategy is clear: more civilian death more PR.

‘At any given point during 2007, there were between 310 and 416 Palestinian children held in Israeli prisons and detention centres in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. These figures are similar to those for 2006 (340 to 420). The number of children arrested in 2007 and the first three months of 2008 brings the total number of Palestinian children arrested by Israeli forces since the beginning of the second Intifada (September 2000) to over 6,000.’

Astute observation Gideon. Would you please explain to me why Israel has, continuously and without exception, violated numerous international laws and treaties? Why, when UN SC resolutions have been passed against them making the same demands, over and over and over, has Israel simply ignored them? These aren’t only laws directly relating to Palestine. Israel has consistently (with the U.S.) been the only country to oppose the realization of the 1963 Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapons Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water.

Perhaps the answer is that, “If nobody was afraid to pay for their acts everyone would be committing them”. Thanks to the U.S., Israel knows it can safely ignore international laws, both customary and black letter.

“But these laws are bunk” you might say. Or the “UN is a joke”. In a “society of law and order” one doesn’t get to decide which laws are acceptable and which are not. One does not get to excuse oneself from its socially determined responsibilities, nor forgive oneself for one’s crimes. If you disagree, just ask an Israeli citizen to break a law, and then see if he can get away with it by declaring that he didn’t like the make up of the government that created the law.

Egypt accepts Israel’s presence because they receive the second most amount of U.S. aid each year, behind only Israel. The population of Egypt, holds a very different perspective on the issue of Israel, however.

It is clear from your argument that you are really suggesting that “might makes right”, which shows that you have not “evolved” from the “barbarism” of the “uncivilized past”.

As for Hamas’ strategy being the death of Palestinian civilians, why is it that Israeli strategy is the exact counterpart? Are the Israelis that stupid? Why don’t you come on this message board lambasting Israel for their stupidity in doing exactly what Hamas wants?

Gideon, on. Dec 11, 1992 Israel and U.S. cast only opposing votes on UNGA Res. 47/64 calling for a resolution of the Palestine Question. Two days later, the U.S. and Israel cast the only opposing votes on UNGA Res. 47/69, commending and continuing the activities undertaken by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. Then, three days after that, “moderate” PM Rabin has 416 Hamas members rounded-up and deported to Lebanon. Of course NONE of the 416 are Lebanese, prompting Israeli Avi Shlaim to denounce the “flagrant violation of international law”.

The result of these actions were twofold: one, the Palestinian delegation suspended ongoing peace negotiations w/ Israel; two, on Mar. 13 2003, Hamas killed 13 Israeli “settlers” (land thieves) in the West Bank. Thus we can conclude that Israeli strategy is to: a) undermine peace talks, and b) cause “terrorist” action to be taken against their civilians.

Gideon, thanks for your post. It really emphasized the message that if the world wants Israel to abide by any laws or treaties, first they will have to violate those same laws and treaties in order to devastate the Israeli civilian population with white phospherous shells, DIME, and depleted uranium. They will have to block any coverage of the onslaught. They will have to bomb synagogues (while people are in them), schools, universities and hospitals. They will have to block off any aid from reaching the imprisoned Israeli terrorists, including from the Red Cross. They will have to kill all the high level leaders of the Israeli terrorist state, often along with their spouses and children.

This of course, will be what the Israeli leaders want. And all of it will be in the name of defending the “civilized world” from “barbarians”.

gideon, dream on.
egypt and jordan have ‘recognized’ state or israel because it does not exist. so, why not ‘recognize’ (beware of its false symbolic value) and get some money.
but of greatest import is the answer to the question, has any land gladhanded israel save christian lands?
and of the 6+bn of us, how many of us had accepted israel and its cult?
will china and india ever accept it? not likely, i say.
but if rich cultists wld give bns to china and india, they wld also accept the phantom that israel is.
thnx

Treaty is a contract between willing parties assuming obligations among themselves. A party may be in breach only if it signed the treaty.
How can Israel be in breach if it did not sign the CTBT treaty?

UN – forum for multilateral discussion (based on its own charter)
UN General Assembly is empowered to make only non-binding recommendations.
Functions and powers: Consider, Discuss, Initiate studies, Make recommendations, Elect the non-permanent members of the Security Council .
Would you like to pick a Security Council resolution to debate?

Israel’s military ethics presents a standard that no Arab country military can even come close to, and few of the western armies can match.

*Kalidas

Israel can defend itself and never asked for US troops to fight its wars.

I am confused about this youtube link you suggested:
Are you supporting Michael Scheuer (former CIA head of Bin Laden unit) statement after 9/11, that he acknowledged during the interview, ” the only way to win is to kill more of the enemy without any concern about civilian casualties”?

Israel on the other hand demonstrates a grave concerns about civilian casualties and is putting its soldiers in danger to minimize these casualties ( leaflets, text messages, announcements, …)

I never said Israel “breached” any treaty. I did suggest that Israel displays criminal behaviour in not wanting to even abide by international consensus. Israel follows their own law, much like the U.S., this “vigilante” justice is criminal by nature. It’s funny you would even debate about that treaty, since it’s objectives are so clearly just and sensible. Israel didn’t sign because they knew they would not comply.

SC resolutions are binding on member states. Israel has not complied with about 50 of them. I mention UNGA resolutions to further illustrate the mindset of the Israelis (and Americans) who consistently act in violation of the spirit, if not always letter of the law, and the international consensus. They have displayed an unwillingness to acknowledge the rules or play by the rules. This is further demonstrated in their close relationship with Apartheid South Africa (with whom they tested nuclear weapons in 1977 in the Kalahari desert, 13 years after most other countries agreed to work towards ceasing such devastating events).

Enough with your fucking leaflets. If I put a man in a cage and warn him I’m about to start bombing the cage, it’s nothing but a PR stunt. If Israel tries to avoid civilian deaths it is extremely incompetent. But we know it does the opposite so I won’t even play into that framework.

Signing the UN Charter obligates Israel under international law with comply rules of engagement regarding conflicts and occupation. The resolutions against Israel have all been passed within the context of that agreement.

The Security Council is the weakest part of the UN’s structure because one veto from any member undermines the will of the entire body.

The US, “permanent member of the Security Council, is the primary reason why Israel has been allowed to commit crimes against humanity. The US has done the same in sovereign states throughout the world with total impunity.

That is why, in the final analysis, the only people who see the inside of a world tribunal for crimes against humanity are tiny and weak little tyrannts from developing/3rd world nations. The killing of hundreds of thousands and in the case of the USA, millions, goes completely unchecked.

But whle compliance has been a major problem, the law is clear and neither Israel nor the USA are above what is clearly major breaches of International law. Whereas, the same crimes would have convicted and hung (ala Saddam) the perpetrators.

In fact, the state of Israel as Zionist have conceived it is completely out of compliance with the UN resolution which allowed Israel to form.

Yes, the old adage, Might makes Right, is still bearing its ugly fruit.

it may be noted that palestinians are not egyptians. gaza strip which belonged to egypt was ceded to pals precisely because of that.
if gazans were of coptic/egyptian origin, i don’t think egypt wld have given up on own people or given away land.

even the socalled zionists inadvertently admit as much because to this day many people call pals “arabs”. they’re not tho. they are or may be descendants of hated canaanites or hamites/arabs.

as for israel warning civilians before resumtion of their fire, we only have the word of the criminals.
most likely, one can only fire so much and when steel gets to hot to use, IOF must take a rest.

but regardless of facts (limited to this raid), israel is to me a criminal state.

Israel plays the role of catspaw for the western empire, and in such a role, deserves whatever falls its way. If Israel had chosen to identify with the independence movements of the world, and drawn her sustenance from the non-aligned movement, instead of alligning herself with the western empire, her enemies would not be so many. As it is, the only solution to the Israeli homeland issue in the Middle East is a working class solution, which both Israel and their friends among the Arab emirates and heirarchies (like Mubarak) have done everything to ensure will not happen.

So, as Abram Leon predicted seventy years ago, they exist today in a death trap of their own making. Because as the contradictions continue to multiply, western imperialism will increasingly place the onus of Israel on the so-called avarice of Judaism. And idiots like Gideon will make sure this happens.

Another western paper towing the line – http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/Columnists/Jacobs_Mindelle/2009/01/06/7928141.html
The only thing to do now, is for Palestinians (especially in West Bank and Gaza) to start a solid passive resistance movement coupled with a great deal of media and press coverage. Hamas would do itself a service to let this happen (probably the only way to garner complete international support) and it will only bring itself down by continuing to bring an icepick to a bazooka fight (especially when, at best, their allies in Hezbollah etc. only upgrade the icepick to a knife/ maybe a chainsaw).
Jewish people (especially Israelis) who oppose the excesses in Gaza need to continue to be actively denouncing the government’s abusive actions, this can be done while still supporting the Israeli state too; ideally, with an acceptance that the world has changed and concessions are necessary for the sake of humanity.
I’m sorry but you can’t phone or text everybody who’s about to be affected by white phosphorus or DIMEs, the range is too unpredictable and impossible to control/ contain, especially on a windy day (which is only part of why it’s banned from urban combat). Months worth of denying access to Gaza by humanitarian groups, denying clean water and food can also surely be seen as not doing their best to reduce civilian casualties. (Ever tried running with kids? ever try running with anemic kids on an empty stomach??) It’s been like dumping a grenade in a fish tank and saying, ‘oh I was just trying to hit the algae, the rest is collateral damage…’
Re. “martyrs”, why is it that Shia are “evil” for celebrating martyrs but not Christians? Why is it that in the press, Hamas (the elected government there) gets called “terrorists” but the LRA in Uganda is called “rebels”? I don’t support either group, nor do I accuse religion as being entirely responsible for all wars or even this one. (While religion has been used, often by politics and wealth, to divide people, history does not support that all too, recently, common assertion of religion causing all wars – the recently prized Atheism too has had extremists and committed violence on people… as has any rigidly held to opinion backed by “science” or whatever authority figure you trust )
Continued violence on any side only serves to continue devaluing humanity for the sake of our ideological systems and governance (any system that we adhere to so adamantly is or becomes an extreme, extremes limit our adaptability and our ability to view things from other perspectives, adaptability and ability to relate to each other is necessary for life in this corrupt and constantly changing world… ).

This character Mark Regev, an Australian who changed his name from Freiberg when he emigrated to Israel, and who is Olmert’s spokesman and a dutiful servant of the entity, should be on the list for a war crimes tribunal. He has received massive airtime on the BBC (and other UK channels) throughout the period of the Israeli offensive with little or no challenge from the supine studio presenters but on this occasion he did get challenged.

The Immigrant Absorption Ministry announced on Sunday it was setting up an “army of bloggers,” to be made up of Israelis who speak a second language, to represent Israel in “anti-Zionist blogs” in English, French, Spanish and German.

The program’s first volunteer was Sandrine Pitousi, 31, from Kfar Maimon, situated five kilometers from Gaza. “I heard about the project over the radio and decided to join because I’m living in the middle of the conflict,” she said.

Before hanging up the phone prematurely following a Color Red rocket alert, Pitousi, who immigrated to Israel from France in 1993, said she had some experience with public relations from managing a production company.

“During the war, we looked for a way to contribute to the effort,” the ministry’s director general, Erez Halfon, told Haaretz. “We turned to this enormous reservoir of more than a million people with a second mother tongue.” Other languages in which bloggers are sought include Russian and Portuguese.

Halfon said volunteers who send the Absorption Ministry their contact details by e-mail, at li.vog.aiomnull@aidem, will be registered according to language, and then passed on to the Foreign Ministry’s media department, whose personnel will direct the volunteers to Web sites deemed “problematic.”

Within 30 minutes of announcing the program, which was approved by the Foreign Ministry on Sunday, five volunteers were already in touch, Halfon said.

Your right about Regev… Unbelievable. I’d like to meet that guy on the street. I’d break his face and then explain to his mom that he did it to himself.

In some ways though, Regev lets the cat out of the bag. Israelis have used the death of innocent Jews as leverage for many years. Perhaps they’ve been deliberately killing jews (see Joel Brand and the blood for weapons case) for this purpose?

suthiano,would you hide behind women and children when you meet regev,like hamas do, or would you break his face the same way that hamas promised to do to the IDF if they set foot on the gaza strip?
hamas have just had a great victory,i believe

yadik,
if torah is adequately and accurately correct, judeans (but not israelis) have resided in judea for ca 3100 years.
the question arises what happened to canaanites (my computer is not printing the question mark at this time)
hebrew priests (again, if torah is correct) have ordered hebrews to slay all inhabitants of the canaanitic city-states; however, historians cannot confirm any of it nor the alleged conquests or slaughters.

so, canaanites may have been continuously present also in judea for 7-10 yrs.
thre is still samaritans, i believe, in israel. they may have been canaanitic-hebraic-shemitc and may still be. they were hated by judeans.

so, `jews` are now killing jews as well as shemites and canaanites. jerusalem, city of the jebusites, was conquered, according that notorious book of yours, 1000 bc.

but jebusites were still living in j`lem with benjanim even in 800 bc.
so, this shows or proves how unreliable not only torah is, but also all of the jewish cultish writings. thnx

We are well down Alice’s rabbit burrow now when the criminal ‘investigates’ its own crimes. Here is the beginning of a BBC report below a photograph of phosphorus raining down on the UN school in Beit Lahiya.

‘The Israeli army is to investigate claims it used white phosphorus illegally during its three-week offensive in Gaza.

The move follows numerous allegations by rights groups and in media reports that the army fired phosphorus shells where they could harm civilians.

The UN said its headquarters were hit by three such shells causing a fire destroying much of its aid supplies.’